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A look back at the Inaugural AkiraChix Women’s Conference

We held our Inaugural Women’s conference on 1st November 2014 at Panari Sky Centre, with over 300 people in attendance, including a few men and students from Ngara Girls High school and Kenya High School.

“She builds. She serves. She leads.”

Our keynote speaker, Juliana Rotich, executive director of Ushahidi kicked off the event with a breakdown of what it means for us to build, to serve and to lead. This talk was a great entry into the program of the day, with a panel discussion on technology for change featuring Nivi Murkhejee, co-founder and CEO, e-Limu, Monica Nthiga, programme officer, Africa – MAVC and Gladys Muhunyo, director of strategy and business development at Tangazoletu Limited.

This discussion was focused on encouraging women to develop tools that make a difference in society.

In the spirit of keeping the conference as interactive as possible, a huge section of the conference agenda was set aside for nine breakout sessions after tea break and lunch revolving around design, career development, programming and entrepreneurship. A lot of cross generational mentoring and learning came into play during these sessions.

We also had finalists from the #IncYOUbateIT competition showcase their ideas throughout the entire conference, and put the public to vote for their favourite idea. Finalists from this competition include:

  • Kona Mbaya – an application to that sensitises Kenyans on the level of insecurity by highlighting safe and unsafe spots
  • Taka App – which offers a linking service to garbage collectors and recyclers that will enable them trade in plastic and metal
  • PaireD –  a social network that will help link women and girls to opportunities and solutions
  • Abero[dot]com – which provides access to information to marginalised women living in Turkana through very feminine information centres and gadgets
  • Rendile Girls Foundation – who are helping create awareness on the problems facing the Rendille Girlchild and also seeking for solutions to these problems
  • S.K.I.R.T.S – which is a platform that offers a voice to speak out against violence on Women and Girls within our society
  • Adding Women’s Voices to Land Legislation in Kenya – putting women’s voices at the centre of legal reforms by supporting a Women’s Rights Task Force to advocate for progressive provisions in national and regional land laws,and ensure regional consultations address women’s rights and include their perspectives

These finalists also participated in a pitching event on 7th November 2014, competing for incubation at the newly launched South to South Lab, and access to funds of up to £40 000.

We chose to wrap up the conference with a discussion around securing women’s spaces online, featuring Nanjira Sambuli, research manager at iHub, Willow Brugh, co-founder and executive director of the NGO Geeks Without Bounds, Brenda Wambui – founder and CEO of BrandAvenue and co-founder of Brainstorm and Njeri Wangari, the multi talented published Kenyan Poet, art and lifestyle blogger and the founder of AfroKidz.

Thank you

This is the first time the team has embarked on running an event on such a scale as this one. All this would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors and partners Making All Voices Count, iHub, Anita Borg Institute, Ewamak Designs and SIDA. The team at AkiraChix is grateful for the support and looks forward to even bigger collaborations in future.

A special thank you also goes out to our speakers and breakout session facilitators, who contributed towards making the event constructive and fun for our participants.

Huge thanks to Kevin Ouma from Picture This Stories for amazing photo coverage of the event as well

Last but certainly not least, a huge shout out goes out to our team of volunteers who worked tirelessly over the last few weeks, attending planning and co-ordination meetings, and making sure that our participants, speakers and facilitators were well taken care off during the entire conference. You exemplify the kind of women who call themselves AkiraChix by serving and leading.

We are looking forward to hosting an even bigger and better AkiraChix Women’s Conference in 2015.

About Angela

angie
Angela Odour [Image – akirachix.com]
Angela Odour is one of the founders of AkiraChix, one of the most dynamic groups of female technologists in Africa. Based in Nairobi, AkiraChix has been instrumental in organising the first pan-African women in IT conference.

Interested in partnering with us next year? Reach out to me via angela@akirachix.com and let’s get the conversation going ;).

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